Club Nintendo hacked in Japan

Nintendo has announced (translated via Kotaku) that the Japanese version of its consumer rewards site, Club Nintendo, has been hacked. The company had a large number of access errors on July 2, which led to a full investigation. Nintendo found 23,000 unauthorized log-ins out of 15 million attempts between June 9 and July 4.

Club Nintendo sites in other countries were unaffected, but members in Japan may have had their full names, addresses, and phone numbers compromised. Nintendo is strengthening its security to prevent another intrusion and is asking Club Nintendo members to change their passwords via email.

via Club Nintendo hacked in Japan | GamesIndustry International.

Club Nintendo hacked in Japan

Pokemon X & Y Honedge Gameplay Footage Revealed

New Pokemon X & Y creature Honedge has been revealed at Japan Expo, with a new trailer showing how the team came up with its design.More importantly, theres Honedge gameplay footage of the new Pokemon in action – have a look and let us know what you think.

via Pokemon X & Y Honedge Gameplay Footage Revealed – NowGamer.

Pokemon X & Y Honedge Gameplay Footage Revealed

ATLUS’ Mother Company Owes a Lot of Money to a Lot of People, Including Kadokawa and Nintendo

We already knew that ATLUS’s mother company Index Corporation filed for Civil Rehabilitation (the Japanese equivalent of a soft Bankruptcy) a few days ago, and today the Japanese blog Japanimate found the list of the creditors belonging to the animation, video games and publishing industry.

Looks like Index owes money to quite a few partners involved in ATLUS’ business. The numbers are indicated in thousands of yen.

Production IG (44,100)

ASCII Media Works (31,521)

Aquaplus (24,120)

STUDIO MAUSU (17,314)

Nintendo (13,599)

Pony Canyon (12,373)

Shueisha (11,395)

Enterbrain (6,166)

Fuji Television Network (5,525)

M-ON! Entertainment (5,040)

JASRAC (3,528)

GREE (2,506)

SEGA (2,454)

Movic (2,412)

YOMIKO (1,890)

Aniplex (1,862)

WiZ (1,737)

Tomy (1,370)

T.O Entertainment (1,260)

TV Asahi (1,218)

Taito (1,113)

Gakken Publishing (1,071)

Tatsumi Publishing (1,050)

via ATLUS’ Mother Company Owes a Lot of Money to a Lot of People, Including Kadokawa and Nintendo | DualShockers.

ATLUS’ Mother Company Owes a Lot of Money to a Lot of People, Including Kadokawa and Nintendo

Report: Julie Larson-Green poised to become next Xbox One boss

The restructuring isn’t finalized and Ballmer may still shuffle roles around up until it’s officially announced, the people said. Xbox head Don Mattrick had been a contender for the hardware post before left the company to become CEO of Zynga Inc. (ZNGA), a move announced July 1.

Under this scenario, Larson-Green would oversee hardware engineering for all devices, including Xbox gaming consoles and Surface tablets, one person said. Windows Phone software chief Terry Myerson would be given added responsibility for Windows operating system engineering under a group combining both businesses, the person said.

via Microsoft CEO Said to Give Bates Mergers Role in Revamp – Bloomberg.

Report: Julie Larson-Green poised to become next Xbox One boss

Pokemon X & Y Global Link Update

The Global Link has updated with an notice regarding the Pokémon Global Link. First, the Global Link will open up for a special X & Y version on October 12th 2013, after a 12 day long maintenance from the start of October. However, from October 12th 2013, various Pokémon Black, White, Black 2 & White 2 features will go offline.

Putting a Pokémon to sleep will go offline on December 10th 2013.

The trial version of the Dream World will go offline on October 12th 2013, as will new user registration.

The GTS tracking for Gen V ends on January 14th 2014 and Rating Mode on Random Matchup goes offline on January 14th 2014.

The ability to do WiFi Memory Link in Black 2 & White 2 also goes offline on January 14th 2014.

C-Gear, Musical and Pokédex Skin changing deactivates on January 14th.

Waking up your Pokémon to get items and Pokémon also deactivates on January 14th. You will be able to wake your Pokémon up from the game side at any time, but the ability to do so from the Global Link deactivates on January 14th

However, using the GTS in the games, Free Rating in the Random Matchup and all the other in-game online features will continue. It’s currently unclear what features the new Global Link will have but when we have these details, they’ll be posted

via Serebii.net – Where Legends Come To Life.

Pokemon X & Y Global Link Update

Read Tim Schafers note to Broken Age backers in full

Kickstarter backers received a note from Tim Schafer to explain the move yesterday – you can read it in full below.Hello, Backers of Adventure!Those of you who have been following along in the documentary know about the design vs. money tension we’ve had on this project since the early days. Even though we received much more money from our Kickstarter than we, or anybody anticipated, that didn’t stop me from getting excited and designing a game so big that it would need even more money. I think I just have an idea in my head about how big an adventure game should be, so it’s hard for me to design one that’s much smaller than Grim Fandango or Full Throttle. There’s just a certain amount of scope needed to create a complex puzzle space and to develop a real story. At least with my brain, there is. So we have been looking for ways to improve our project’s efficiency while reducing scope where we could along the way. All while looking for additional funds from bundle revenue, ports, etc. But when we finished the final in-depth schedule recently it was clear that these opportunistic methods weren’t going to be enough. We looked into what it would take to finish just first half of our game—Act 1. And the numbers showed it coming in July of next year. Not this July, but July 2014. For just the first half. The full game was looking like 2015! My jaw hit the floor. 

In full via Read Tim Schafers note to Broken Age backers in full | News | Edge Online.

Read Tim Schafers note to Broken Age backers in full

Microsoft Execs Thought They Owned Donkey Kong After Acquiring Rare

Back in 2002 Microsoft forked out $375 million to acquire UK-based developer Rare, which had previously enjoyed a long prosperous period with Nintendo.

Of course that meant all of Rare’s intellectual properties went along for the ride, including Perfect Dark and Banjo Kazooie. However, according to Chris Seavor, former Rare employee and the director behind Conker’s Bad Fur Day, a few Microsoft executives also thought they’d picked up Donkey Kong as well, since the developer had made classic titles such as Donkey Kong Country and Donkey Kong 64.

Speaking on Twitter, Seavor said a few of the top-brass at Microsoft came for a tour around the studios and upon seeing Donkey Kong posters proceeded to get excited about owning the franchise – until Rare corrected them.

via Microsoft Execs Thought They Owned Donkey Kong After Acquiring Rare – Nintendo Life.

Microsoft Execs Thought They Owned Donkey Kong After Acquiring Rare